—-- RazenHeir Drill master —-
[Physique : 40]
[Mana : 5]
[Mind : 5]
[Defense : 42]
[RazenHeir flames : 1]
Hikari leapt high into the air.
She uses her telekinesis to glide through the air.
A distance that would take an army days.
It had taken her less than an hour.
Thud!
She lands.
Her boot marks sink deep into the ground.
She removes her hood.
Her silver hair was bundled neatly around her neck.
She scans the area.
The trees were a different color.
The ground was soft from the constant rain.
She had left RazenHeir territory.
She recalled the briefing from the scout master.
Commander of the RazenHeir scouts, the units of the RazenHeir house that move first into enemy territory.
A dangerous job shunned even by monster hunters.
The enemy has been identified as the cult of Eon.They have been raiding villages and dragging people off to some place. Reports had suggested the direction of the cultist convoys converging somewhere in the area. Find the cultist depot and burn it to the ground.
Hikari looks around.
The countryside was eerily quiet.
She uses her telekinesis to raise a sound barrier.
As she marches, her sound barrier muffles her footsteps.
It keeps her hidden despite her size.
Mana sense.
A basic mana skill.
The knight releases their aura around them, sensing movements and attacks from angles they cannot see.
Hikari's mana sense stretched further than a musket ball could fly.
She retrieves it.
The mana sense was double-edged.
Releasing too much mana makes her visible.
The forests and roads were still.
The smell of blood.
Hikari draws her claymore.
Her ears listening for movements.
She hears crows dozens of metres away, pecking on the ground.
They gather on the road just around the bend.
Hikari cautiously approached.
A dead farmer and what remained of his horse.
The crows pecked at their remains
Large swaths of meat were removed from the horse until the bones and rotting, inedible organs were left in plain sight.
The wagon was ransacked of anything of value.
The farmer himself was mutilated.
A musket remained in his hand.
He fired at least one shot.
Hikari moves on.
A village up ahead.
It was quiet.
She could only hear the crows flapping their wings.
Cautiously, she entered the town.
Splinters, musket shot marks.
The faint, acrid smell of gunpowder.
Bodies that were looted.
Body parts missing.
The blood had dried.
The battle was days old.
Cannons were left behind.
They were too heavy to haul in haste.
The banner of the territorial army.
Bodies crushed to paste.
The barricade was completely smashed.
They made a stand but were overrun when something big showed up.
Track marks on the ground.
She follows them.
She expands her mana sense.
There! A hint of RazenHeir flame so minute that only those trained by the house can sense it.
The RazenHeir scouts were tracking the cultists.
Hikari leaves her own flame mark.
The flames of the RazenHeir house could stand even without a mana source.
The main force will follow the flame marks the scouts leave.
She marches along the main road.
She moves faster as her boot prints make her easy to track.
Another flame mark in the trees.
The scouts followed the cultist convoy from a distance.
As she marched, she took out a sealed pouch and emptied its contents into her mouth.
Her ration pack; it was probably her last chance to eat.
The scout's standard rations.
The cooks claimed that it was mostly wheat.
It was getting dark.
The darkness does not faze her.
She can see as clearly in the pitch dark as in daylight.
Her foes cannot see as well in the dark, giving her a significant tactical advantage.
Dim lanterns in the distance.
A pale light just bright enough to stay on the road.
Hikari can see them through the sparse trees.
She slows down her steps and strengthens her sound barrier.
A cultist convoy, no doubt.
Villagers locked up in cages pulled by horses.
Gagged and blinded so they wouldn't make any noise.
Grunts guarded them, carrying an assortment of basic weapons.
The foreman stops them at the crossroads.
He walks around with his lantern, checking for something.
He rubs his hand on a stone.
He feels the markings with his fingers.
Cryptic sounds as he barked quietly to his followers.
The convoy turned.
A silent swing.
The foreman's body was cleaved in half.
His insides burst out of his shattered ribcage.
Trees were knocked off their stumps.
The grunts drew their muskets and aimed, but they could not see anything in the pitch dark.
Swords came out of the woods, impaling the cultists.
Panicked, the helpless grunts discharged their muskets into the dark woods, hitting nothing but the trunks of trees.
The cultists broke and ran.
A giant emerged from the woods.
The daggers impaling the dead cultists to the ground and trees floated back onto her.
There was no reason to chase down a bunch of hapless grunts running away.
Cink!
Hikari used one of her throwing daggers to chisel down the locks.
The tied-up villagers crawled out of the cages.
Hikari stabbed a dagger into the ground, allowing them to cut their ropes free.
They scavenged the dead cultists.
The lucky ones found rations.
They grabbed the lanterns and scurried into the forests.
Hikari continued down the road.
She had waited for the foreman to reveal the direction before killing him.
Another flame mark.
It was deeper in the forest than the last one.
She was in cultist territory now.
The scouts ahead of her stayed further away from the road.
She leaves a flame mark.
The scouts might have already found the cultist camp.
She just has to follow the trail of flame marks.
Moving off road now.
Leaping through the air now would immediately give away her position.
The trail of flame marks moved parallel to the main road.
Pale lantern lights in the distance at the crossroads.
Hikari retrieved her mana sense and slowed her pace.
The wind blew, the leaves rustled.
Hikari darted forward under the cover of the noise.
A cultist checkpoint.
Grunts lay in ambush around the fork in the road.
Most of them were sleeping.
A grunt moved into the woods to take a piss.
He looked up.
Ruby red eyes faintly glowing above.
His head was severed from his shoulders.
Shouts. The sound of gunpowder igniting.
Cultists being impaled by giant daggers.
A cultist wakes up and scrambles for his lantern.
The last thing he saw was the sole of a boot.
With a short, sharp battle, Hikari cleared the checkpoint.
She kept her daggers and hoisted her claymore.
Nothing but grunts so far.
She better keep moving; the ruckus she was causing was definitely starting to draw attention.
Mana.
She stops.
It was a trap.
Movements.
Flesh abominations rose from the ground all around her.
They were buried in the ground, dormant.
As mana flowed into them, they came to life.
They thrashed their tentacles around.
Their deformed bodies were impervious to musket fire.
Vines grew over their tortured flesh.
Pink flows glowed in the darkness.
Hikari jumped into the air to escape the trap.
She moved through the trees quickly.
Another gust of wind rustled the leaves covering her advance.
Another flame mark. She was getting close.
She stopped.
It was the end of the trail.
She had found the RazenHeir scouts.
A chilling sight greeted her.
Their lifeless husks gathered around an extinguished campfire, constricted by a strange vine, glowing pink flowers growing out of their eyes and mouths.
They were careless to start a fire and met their fate in an ambush.
She held up her palm.
Incinerate.
Their bodies were engulfed in RazenHeir flame.
She pried the swords and their crests from their burning bodies.
Returning their crests would be all she could do for them.